Joe Biden made myriad weird comments and claims during his Friday night interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos—”I’m running the world” jumps out—and one of his allegations is seeing increased scrutiny in the cold light of day. He was thrown off his game during the debate disaster because, he says, Trump was shouting at him when it wasn’t the former president’s turn to be speaking.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And– how– how quickly did it– did it come to you that you were having that bad night?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, it came to me I was havin’ a bad night when I realized that even when I was answering a question, even though they turned his mic off, he was still shouting. And I– I let it distract me. I– I’m not blaming it on that, but I realized that I just wasn’t in control.
There are two obvious problems with this statement. One, the leader of the free world just admitted that he “wasn’t in control,” despite the fact he holds the highest office in the land, was facing two reporters known to be biased in his favor, and his opponent had his microphone cut off when it wasn’t his turn to speak. If you don’t feel in control of this situation, how are you going to hold up in a meeting with China’s Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin?
The second problem: there is no evidence that Trump was shouting. Most of the time, the format was a split screen, and you could see Trump reacting to Biden’s ramblings. At no point was he seen shouting.
I actually did see Trump try to make a quick statement here or there when his microphone was cut, but the attempts were inconsequential, and in no universe could they be seen as “shouting.”
More interview fallout:
The Moment Stephanopoulos Gave the Game Away and Failed to Follow Up on Crucial Biden Claim
Biden Gets Decimated by Responses to Trainwreck Interview—the Pic That Says It All
I’m not one who believes it’s the job of moderators to fact-check candidates in real-time during a debate—it ruins the flow of the conversation, and as we saw in 2012 when CNN’s Candy Crowley kneecapped GOP nominee Mitt Romney by fact-checking him on the spot (and turning out to be wrong), it’s a tactic vulnerable to political manipulation by whoever is the moderator. That being said, where are Jake Tapper and Dana Bash now that it’s over? Have they come out and said, “No, that’s a lie, Trump was not screaming”? Not to my knowledge.
It will probably go down in their eyes as just another instance of “Joe being Joe.” But this shouting claim appears to be an outright lie, and if Trump or another Republican had thrown out something like that, it would be front-page news over at The New York Times, and there would be an all-day CNN panel full of grim-faced “experts.”
When it comes to the swiftly declining president and his false claims, however, they just shrug.
